Man With Potential

Pete Swanson has released a handful of cassette and LPs since his electronic noise duo Yellow Swans disbanded in 2008, but none have offered something this easy-- or oddly danceable-- to latch onto.

Pete Swanson has long led a dual life as a noise musician (most famously in the late, lamented duo Yellow Swans) and a social worker helping the homeless and mentally ill. When I asked him last year if he found any connections between those pursuits, he recalled testing a virtual-reality machine that simulates schizophrenic hallucinations. To Swanson, the bombardment of illogical stimuli felt "psychedelic in the most terrible way"-- and similar to his music. "There are these elements that [are] very concrete and consistent and musical, and people can latch onto these things," he said. "But then there are all these other things happening-- distortions being introduced, [and] chaotic elements that don't contribute musically, but determine the trajectory of the piece."

That description certainly fits Man With Potential, perhaps more than any other record he's been involved with. The handful of cassettes and LPs he has released since Yellow Swans disbanded in 2008 have had their share of distortion and chaos. But none has offered something this easy to latch onto. It comes in the form of a consistent, prominent beat-- so prominent that some claim Swanson has "gone techno." This isn't completely new territory for him, though-- Yellow Swans could drop a heavy beat too, especially on their throbbing 2004 album Bring the Neon War Home.

But even that blast of nuclear dance-noise didn't have the insistence and drive of Man With Potential. On most of the tracks, this drive is like a caffeine-infused heartbeat, pumping blood into a mix of buzzing tones, rising waves, and cutting noise. Swanson is usually partial to drones, but here his approach is more precise and almost pointillist, often sounding like a symphony of dot-matrix printers. Swarms of chirps, whirrs, blips, and pops dart and dive around each other, but they're all grounded by a relentless, nerve-affecting pulse.

Those words may make Man With Potential seem hyper and frenzied, a blizzard of blinding sound. At times it does feel that way. "Misery Beat" opens the album in the midst of panic, pounding and squeaking like Swanson has been sprinting for hours and we're just catching up. But the beat also has a calming effect. It stabilizes what might otherwise be dizzying, like a sedative that makes chaos feel less frightening. It might sound paradoxical, but there really is a meditative aspect to Swanson's flying noise. That's not surprising given his history of infusing all kinds of sounds with Zen-like serenity.

In fact, as fun and oddly danceable as these trackscan be, the best are the most rhythmically serene. They're also the noisiest-- the granular grit of "A&Ox0" swells into soothing waves, while closer "Face the Music" is the album's only slow track, as bass lines rise into something like abstract metal or hardcore New Age. All those adjectives may be a lot to swallow, but on Man With Potential Pete Swanson's ability to encompass many sounds and moods knows few bounds, if any.